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What do you need to successfully compete?

Learning choreography, new turn patterns and working them into a specific piece of music requires a lot of time and commitment. Those who wish to create their routine from scratch need even more time. Budget three to six months before the competition to design and perfect your routine. By the last week before the competition, you should be walking and dancing through a completed routine, doing only a little touch up here or there. Trying to learn a new pattern at that point is disaster.

Here are the ingredients which went into Mike & Sharon's 2003 & 2004 winning Berlin/Toronto Dance Competition routines.

A Compatible Partner

Simply dancing for fun requires a partnership and a connection between the two partners even if they dance for one song and never see each other again.

Successful competition dancing takes that partnership into a whole new dimension of familiarity and connection. You will be working closely together for several months. Followers must be able to live with the lead that the leader uses. Leaders must be able to move with the follower's timing. Are both ahead of the beat or behind the beat on responding to lead? Both must agree on the set of figures that will be done again and again and again. Colds, aches, sprains, PMS or a hard day cannot get in the way of creating your winning routine. There is no such thing as a bad day for competitors. Choose your partner carefully and treat them like gold.

Music

Music selection is as important as choosing a compatible partner. Both of you will be hearing and dancing to that music several hundred times before you even set foot onto the competition stage. If you get tired of it after a few weeks, imagine how sick and unmotivated you will be three or six months later - hearing and moving to that same piece of music week after grinding week. Choose your music very carefully.

Choreography

Sequences of moves and their relation to the music is what makes music and a partner a winning combination. Take the time to design the sequence of moves that will compliment the music. Count out the number of beats it takes to do a figure. Count out the number of beats in a song and note where the accents are and try to use your figures to compliment the music. A hand flick, a hair flick, a dip or a turn in the right place can turn a passable performance into a winning one.

Be careful not to blur or mix up your turn patterns. A professional couple in the 2004 Toronto Competition did a back break and started to enter a turn where the leader uses the back of the follower's shoulder. There are a zillion variations on that entry. But the follower thought she was going into a neck drop, a dip where the leader uses the follower's shoulder and neck to bring her down. Down she went, and the leader lunged and scrambled to recover her before she hit the ground. They did not make the finals. Make sure your sequence does not get mixed up in that way.

While this is a very trying and tedious process, the work must be put in here as all the other factors support, not replace this most important ingredient for success. Costumes and clothing will fall into place once the choreography is established.

Patience

Doing the same turn ten times in a row, walking through that turn another five times in a row, counting out each beat, seeing where the feet fall and making minute adjustments is not everybody's idea of fun. Both leader and follower must have infinite patience to go through this necessary process of working through choreography.

Technology

Technology is a wonderful tool to help perfect that routine. If possible, video yourselves performing the routine. And, watch that video with the same attention a football team watches their game tapes. You are looking for both the obvious and the very subtle errors, inconsistencies, variations in body positions, and variations in timing. That trusty video camera gave us the clues we needed to place third in the 2004 Toronto Salsa Competition.

Coming out of the 2004 preliminaries, we knew we had a potentially winning routine, but our marks, especially the 12/20 for timing did not reflect it. Heading back to the studio, we positioned our video camera to frame both us and our reflected image in the studio mirror and recorded our routine. We then played it back and looked at our feet as we counted out each and every beat. The timing problem lept out at us. Two hours later, after a lot of talking, very candid discussion and literally deciding exactly when to "launch" Sharon into a turn - on five, not on one - we fixed the problem. Another three sessions of practice, ensuring body weight was on the correct foot for the correct beat, and counting the timing out loud as we entered turns cemented the solution. Our timing marks coming out of the semi-finals jumped from 12/20 to 18-19/20. Do not underestimate the power of video.

Perservence

Everyone has a bad day or even a bad week. Despite the turbulance that can swirl through life, trials and tribulations must be parked at the door during practice time. If something isn't working, both must be willing to try it again and again or devise another figure to create a solution.

Consistency

Once a turn pattern is mastered and a routine is finally built, executing it on demand with or without the music must be second nature.

A Resource

Whether an instructor or choreographer is hired to create the routine or is asked to look at the finished routine, a winning routine is not created in isolation. Have a practiced eye look over the routine to see how it flows, to see if technical adjustments need to be made. Perhaps one partner or both partners need some extra work in technique or posture or in leading or following. That outsider looking in is well worth the extra time and perhaps the little bit of money.

Supportive Friends

Friends will be hearing progress or lack of progress or will suffer through your pre-competition jitters for quite some time before the competition. Pray that one's friends are willing to put up with this new factor in everyone's lives, as this endeavour will expand to dominate one's life. Treat your friends like the diamonds they truly are.

A Thick Skin

Being publically judged is a very difficult process to submit one's self to. Not everyone has that kind of courage. Do not take the 12/20 or the 6/10 personally. They have a job, which is to judge. And you have a job, which is to dance. Use the judging sheets to identify previously overlooked weakness and improve on them for the next round. Here is where that outside eye or the technology discussed above becomes most useful.

Lots of Fun

The payoff for this agony is dancing in front of an enthusiastic crowd who is looking forward to seeing some really sexy or acrobatic or cutting edge salsa.

They are there to see you!

They will get inspiration from you and perhaps even pick up a new move or a new twist on an old move. Enjoy the crowd, make your routine attractive to that spectator whose cover charges and bar bills and salsa lessons drive the salsa community economy.

And, go out and do it again next year.